Kalamazoo Junior Symphony to celebrate the human voice with 'On Wings of Song'

KALAMAZOO, MI -- In a season where we’ve already performed his Violin Concerto and “Reformation” Symphony, it seems only fitting that a gorgeous miniature for voice and piano by Felix Mendelssohn, inspired by the poetry of Heinrich Heine, should provide the title of our final concert: "On Wings of Song."

The performance will be a celebration of the human voice, and the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony is honored to welcome the combined choirs of Vicksburg and Portage Central High Schools - Dustin Morris and Cindy Hunter directors, respectively - as our collaborators.

We will begin the program with an implied voice in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s beloved Vocalise. The work was originally conceived for piano and either soprano or tenor, who sings no words but simply a syllable of her or his choosing. The very name vocalise implies a vocal warm-up, though this is an exercise in the same tradition of Chopin’s Etudes for Piano: one whose rich musicality belies the title’s humble origins. Rachmaninoff’s melodic gifts are in particular evidence here, and the work proved so popular that it was transcribed for nearly every imaginable combination of instruments, including one for chamber orchestra by the composer himself; it is this version that we will perform.

If you go

Each spring, the KJSO has the pleasure of featuring some of the brightest talent within the orchestra in a soloistic capacity; this time it is our principal second violinist Rebecca Luppe. Rebecca lives multiple musical lives: she’s won competitions as a composer and on our upcoming concert she’ll be featured as a pianist, this time in the sparkling first movement of Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major.

Written at the end of the 1920s, the music is strongly influenced by jazz, an idiom that many of his Parisian colleagues had already enjoyed an infatuation with; Ravel joined their interest after a concert tour to America, where he was able to sample the music first-hand. The Concerto in G marries jazz’s city rhythms with Ravel’s trademark elegance and brilliant orchestration.

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida continues to be a mainstay in opera houses worldwide. Set in ancient Egypt, it tells the tale of the titular captured Ethiopian Princess, and her great love, the Egyptian army commander Radames, who is torn between his love for her and his duty to the Pharaoh. Though the opera ends tragically, with the lovers both sealed in a tomb and fated to die together, the end of Act II strikes a rather different tone: written in the tradition of French Grand Opera, from which Verdi borrowed freely, it features the triumphant return of Radames and his troops from battle. They proudly march through the city gate of Thebes to the adulation of Priests, the Pharaoh and a chorus of people, who sing in tribute.

In the years after his monumental German Requiem, Johannes Brahms continued to write music for chorus and orchestra. One of his most beautiful - and yet curiously underperformed - achievements in this period is the Schicksalslied, or Song of Destiny, which uses a text by Friedrich Hölderlin. The earlier Requiem had distinguished itself from other notable entries into the genre by its gentle spirit of humanism: it was intended as a comfort for the living, whereas many others had focused on the dramatic potential of fear and humility at God’s judgment. That same humanism pervades in the Schicksalslied.

Alexander Borodin, a member of the nationalistic Russian composer collective known as the “Mighty Five,” led something of a double existence: during the day, he was one of Russia’s most respected chemists; at night, he turned his prodigious musical talent to composition. His magnum opus was to be the opera Prince Igor, but various time constraints left the work unfinished at his death. His colleague Rimsky-Korsakov helped complete the work posthumously, but a somewhat muddled narrative about the capture and escape of a heroic medieval Russian Prince from the Polovtsi, an invading Turkic tribe, has kept the opera from a regular place in the repertory. Nonetheless, several particularly brilliant moments from the opera attest to the potential of what might have been, and none dazzles quite so much as the Polovetsian Dances, a thrilling showpiece for chorus and orchestra.

OUR SOLOIST - KJSO CONCERTO COMPETITION WINNER REBECCA LUPPE

Rebecca Luppe began her piano studies at age seven with Rebecca Barnes. By age 12, she was studying with Susan Uchimura, music professor and member of the renowned Merling Piano Trio at Western Michigan University. Rebecca marks this as the time when she began to think seriously about her piano studies. By age 14, Rebecca was named one of the winners of the 2010 Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra Youth Auditions where she played the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.1. Thousands of school children from all over the area enjoyed seeing and hearing Rebecca perform with the KSO, many for the first time. In the spring of 2011, Rebecca received another honor from the KSO; she was chosen as a winner of their Young Composer Competition. Her original composition, “Bright Green,” was orchestrated by Harrison Orr and performed by the orchestra in March 2011.

Rebecca has participated in the Michigan Music Teachers Association Achievement Testing since age 14, where theory, aural awareness, technique and performance skills are tested and rated. In 2010 her high scores allowed her to compete at the state level, where she received honorable mention. Both in 2009 and 2011, she was asked to participate in the semi-finals competition as well, and she received perfect scores in all areas in 2011. Later that fall, Rebecca placed second in the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Young Artist Competition.

In March of 2011 Rebecca performed at the Grand Rapids Bach Festival as the second place winner in the Festival’s Young Keyboard Artists competition. Later in the year, to her delight, she won the concerto competition with the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony! In January 2012, Rebecca was a finalist in Hope College’s Young Artist Competition, one of 10 finalists from a five state area.

In addition to her piano studies, Rebecca is principal second violin with the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony. She takes private lessons at Crescendo Academy of Music where she has studied with Candis Parrish and is currently studying with Audrey Lipsey. Rebecca loves playing in the orchestra, since most of her piano work is as a soloist.

Rebecca is a regular musical contributor to her church family at Portage United Church of Christ, where she recently began her job as the adult choir accompanist.

Rebecca has been a fortunate recipient of many of our local Education for the Arts grants. She has attended Gilmore Piano Camp at Sherman Lake numerous times, and also WMU’s Seminar. This coming summer will mark her second summer attending Indiana University’s Piano Academy, one of the top summer programs in the country for high school students.

As a sixteen-year old sophomore, Rebecca enjoys the freedom that homeschooling gives her, allowing her more time to study music. When she is not practicing, Rebecca enjoys listening to music, making music with friends, and attending the rich variety of concert opportunities in Kalamazoo. She loves being outside, being at church, baking (and eating her baked goods!), and dancing in the modern dance classes offered at Wellspring. She is the daughter of Beth and Scott Luppe of Kalamazoo.

OUR GUEST CHORAL DIRECTORS

CYNTHIA HUNTER received her Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education from Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, and the Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from Western Michigan University where she studied with Dr. Craig Arnold. Since 1998 Ms. Hunter has been the Director of Choirs at Portage Central High School and Central Middle School where she directs six choirs daily, two after school choirs: Men’s Ensemble and Women’s Ensemble, and is the Musical Director and Orchestra Conductor for the annual school musical. Ms. Hunter served as the interim conductor of the Kalamazoo Singers, preparing them for their performance of Giacommo Puccini’s opera “Turandot” with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra in September 2009 as well as concerts in December 2009 and November 2010. Ms. Hunter is the Director of Music at Portage United Church of Christ where she is the organist/pianist and directs the Covenant Choir.

Ms. Hunter is regularly involved in theatre productions. She has been Musical Director for thirteen productions at Portage Central High School, including The Phantom of the Opera, Hairspray, The Who’s Tommy, Les Miserables, Ragtime, Miss Saigon, and Thoroughly Modern Millie. In 2002 she was Musical Director for the Portage Central High School production of Honk, and traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland with students who presented four performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Locally she has been Musical Director for productions of The Drowsy Chaperone, Ragtime, A Chorus Line, and Jekyll and Hyde, the Musical at the Kalamazoo Civic Theater, Bat Boy, Reefer Madness, Assassins, and Three Penny Opera at Whole Art Theatre, and West Side Story at the Barn Theatre.

Ms. Hunter served as Portage Public Schools Team Leader for secondary level music for 8 years and has served as building chair for Fine Arts at Central High School for 10 years. She has twice received an Excellence in Education Award from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, and has received numerous Artistic Development Grants from Education for the Arts and the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation.

In addition she has served six years on the State Board of the Michigan School Vocal Music Association as supervisor for State Solo and Ensemble Festival, and is a member of the American Choral Director’s Association, and the Board of Directors for the Kalamazoo Bach Festival Society.

DUSTIN MORIS is in his sixth year as vocal music director at Vicksburg High School.

Previously he directed choirs at Kalamazoo Christian High School and Westminster Presbyterian Church in Portage as well as other community choirs and church choirs in Utah and Illinois. He holds a bachelor of arts from Kalamazoo College and a masters of music in choral directing from the University of Utah, where he studied with John Cooksey. He has sung professionally with the Utah Opera Company Chorus, the Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana and the Camerata Singers of Muskegon.